


To love, to kiss, to sweetly hold

by IronShieldGal



Series: TWDG / Clouis oneshots [1]
Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: AJ does soccer, F/M, Fluff, Lazy sunday in grown up louis and clem's life, Louis is smitten, What If the apocalypse hadn't happened, also he wins at soccer bc he's cool like that, might turn into a bigger fic of everything that happened until they got to this point, no beta we die like men, short piece
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-16 00:30:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16074590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IronShieldGal/pseuds/IronShieldGal
Summary: A typical sunday in the lives of Clementine and Louis, in a world where zombies don't exist but these two found each other anyway.To love, to kiss, to sweetly holdFor the dancing and the dreamingThrough all life's sorrows and delightsI'll keep your love beside me





	To love, to kiss, to sweetly hold

**Author's Note:**

> So  
> In my other walking dead fic, I think "fell into the foamy brine' louis ponders what it would be like if zombies never happened, I think lazy sundays are mentioned? Idk
> 
> I wrote it anyway. 
> 
> Also the Telltale fiasco and episodes 3 & 4 of the final season not coming out Did Not Happen and i'm going to ignore that as long as I can okay thanks yeah great
> 
> ALSO IMPORTANT there are mentions of nudity. As in they're naked, but like nothing really happens? but if it makes you uncomfortable you might want to evade it, idk.

 

Light filters through the curtains and Louis turns to his right side, his back to the window and the offending sunshine. A sound escapes his throat, something in between a yawn and a groan as he buries his head in between the two pillows. The smell of oranges fills his nose, a fresh scent that flutters through his brain and brings a dopey, tired smile to his lips.

He blinks his eyes open and she’s already watching him. Her warm, amber golden eyes are trained on his face, twinkling with amusement. Her brown hair is lying on her cheek, obscuring her pink lips from view as it travels down and lies on the mattress. 

When he first met her, her hair had been short and always covered in a baseball cap. The start of the next school year, after the summer, her hair had reached her shoulders and she’d blushed when he complimented it. 

He looks up at her and thinks that he should count her freckles sometime. They frame her nose like flower petals scattered on her face and he wants to touch them, trace patterns between them that only he sees. 

They remind him of the stars, and of all the times they went stargazing together. It’s been a while since they’d done that, maybe they could go again soon. Take a week off work when she’s got a free week from uni and they could go to sweden or norway or something. Camp for a few days. Watch the stars. 

“Good morning,” she says, her voice gruff with sleep and he smiles at her. “Good morning,” he tells her. He lifts a hand and tucks her hair behind her ear before leaning up and kissing her. 

God, if anyone had told him a few years ago he’d be here, waking up next to the most beautiful girl in the world on a sunday morning in their apartment he’d laugh at them and make a joke at his own expense. He’s so lucky to have her. 

“I love you,” he whispers when their lips part, and a chuckle comes from her lips before she’s sitting up, sheets falling off her naked shoulders and his eyes trace the curves of her body almost with shame before he remembers that he’s allowed to look, that she likes it when he looks. 

So when she looks back, her eyes finding his face, he doesn’t pretend he hasn’t been looking. He lets his eyes sweep over her body and reaches out a hand to flick the closest nipple. 

“Louis,” she says. “It’s seven thirty,” she says. 

“So? We have like, half an hour until we have to leave,” he wiggles his eyebrows at her and her hand shoots out, hitting him upside the head. “I gotta throw in the new load of laundry and you are going to make breakfast,” she tells him pointedly. He sighs dramatically before sitting up. “You’re lucky you’re cute,” he tells her as his feet find cold laminate flooring. A shiver runs up his spine and he grabs one of his shirts from the floor, slipping it over his head as he makes his way to the window and opening the curtains. 

Her skin glows bronze in the sunlight and he watches her muscles move underneath her skin as she gets dressed. 

“What do you want to eat?” he asks her as he pulls up some pants, fastens a belt and hops on one foot, then the other to get his socks on. 

“Something quick,” she says. “Cereal is fine for today. We can lunch big,” she smiles at him and he smiles back as she leaves the room, fastening a watch around her wrist. 

He picks up his phone from the nightstand and checks it. Seven twenty-eight. Two texts from Violet -a selfie of her and Minnie in a club both raising middle fingers and the text after calls him a lame loser for staying home on a saturday night. A bunch of texts from Marlon, who gets drunker with every text and the last ten are incomprehensible blabber. He quickly shoots a picture of rumpled sheets back at Violet with some winky faces and then asks Marlon if he’s doing okay and if he had fun last night. 

There’s a text from Alice, asking if she’s going to be at Tim’s birthday party next weekend. He thinks about the gift that’s sitting on the kitchen table, already wrapped perfectly by Clementine, and confirms. Marlon’s mom and dad might not be his actual parents but they’ve done a hell of a lot more for him than anyone else and he’s glad they still want him in their lives now that he’s an adult. 

Somewhat an adult. 

He pockets the phone and wanders into the kitchen. He makes two bowls of cereal to the sound of Clementine shoving dirty clothes into the washing machine. He hums under his breath -considers turning on the radio, but they’ll be leaving soon anyway so he decides against it. 

They eat breakfast in silence -Clem reading the paper, Louis scrolling through a news feed on his phone. They leave their dishes in the sink and pull on sneakers before they step outside. 

It’s chilly and Louis pushes his hands deeper in the pockets of his coat, watching with fascination as his breath turns to visible clouds in the winter air. Snow crunches underneath his feet as they walk towards their old, beaten down car. 

Clementine hands him the car keys and he smiles at her. She’s had her licence longer, but ever since she got into a car accident that landed her uncle Kenny in the hospital she’s stopped driving, so he gets behind the wheel and drives to her dad’s house. It’s a short ride and he drives carefully, wary of snow and ice on the road. 

The fact that Clem’s hands are turning white because of the sheer force she’s gripping her seat with worries him. He knows that winter makes things worse for her -all the bad things that happened in her life were during the winter, but it seems like she’s doing worse than last year. 

He knows she doesn’t want him to worry, but with everything she’s been through, and the effects of those things  _ still _  bothering her, he always worries. 

“So, I was thinking Schrodinger,” he says, eyes fixed on the road as he tries to relieve the tension in her shoulders. He feels her gaze on him, knows she’s frowning because she realises he’s trying to distract her. 

“That’s horrible,” she says, but her voice is light. “I’m telling you, we can’t pick a name until we meet the cat.” 

“Yeah, but it’ll do nicely to have a list of pre-selected names we like,” he argues. “Cats won’t listen to given names anyway. Only animals to respond to names are dogs, and even then. Rosie barely listens to Marlon if she doesn’t feel like it.” 

Clem’s been doing better with Rosie. The dog is a big one and doesn’t really like strangers at first, but Marlon helped Clem to get Rosie to get to know her, but she still rather stays away from all dogs in general. 

“Well maybe I like Smaug,” she says, and he laughs. “If you want to name the cat after the lousiest dragon of all time, be my guest dear.” 

This elicits an argument about the dragon in question and she’s animatedly arguing his points, punctuating her sentences with hand movements when he pulls up into Lee Everett’s driveway. 

The door opens and the kid flies outside into Clem’s arms before she’s fully out of the car. Lee Everett follows a few seconds after, a bemused smile on his face as he hands the sports bag over to Louis. 

“Have fun,” he says. Louis smiles at the man. “Thank you, sir,” he says with a grin, and Lee rolls his eyes. “Honestly, Louis,” he says, bemused. 

“No idea what you’re talking about, mr Everett, sir,” he says, throwing the bag into the back and sitting back down in front of the wheel. AJ climbs into the backseat and is chatting about his week at school and how he made a new friend named Tenn. Clementine reminds him to fasten his seatbelt and waves at her father as Louis pulls out again to get AJ to his soccer match. 

 

AJ wins, of course, and Louis has an armful of sweaty eight-year-old as he wonders how long it’ll stay like this. If AJ will ever stop wanting to hang out with his big sister and her boyfriend. 

“Hey squirt,” Louis says. “Want to go home or do you want to watch movies and order pizza?” AJ’s eyes sparkle and he bounces on his feet. “Pizza! And lion king!” he decides, so Louis gestures towards the car. “Be my guest, kid,” he says and watches with a smile as AJ says goodbye to his teammates, bragging about the pizza. 

Arms wrap around his waist from behind and he turns his head to find Clem’s head on his shoulder. She’s standing on the curb behind him, giving her that little extra height she needs for this. “Hi,” he breathes as his nose bumps into her cheek. “Hi,” she whispers back. 

She twists her head and kisses him. He cranes his neck and thinks about how happy he is. 

He’s living together with the love of his life, they’re getting a cat and her little brother is an absolute delight they get to take care of in the weekends to give Lee some time alone. 

It feels like he has his entire life together and it couldn’t possibly be better. Clementine will finish uni next year, with a degree in criminology and she’ll earn a lot more than him, and maybe they could move to somewhere just outside the city. An old farm, maybe. A place to watch the stars -maybe a horse, or chickens. Goats? 

Everyone always assumes he hates that she’ll earn more but he just shrugs and says “she deserves to, she’s a lot smarter than me. I can stay home and take care of the kids.” And then Clementine laughs and tells him he can only have kids if he decides to give birth to them, but he knows she’s seriously thinking about kids -biologically theirs or adopted- when she’s done with uni, and he loves her because she knows he wants kids badly. 

But for now he has AJ and she wants to focus on her career and he loves her with everything he has so he can quiet that longing for a few more years. 

And if she doesn't want to at all, they can talk about it. Compromise, maybe. They’ll see. For now, they have each other, and AJ, and it’s enough. 

So he follows AJ and drives his two favorite people home. 

 

Home always feels more like home when AJ is there. The apartment becomes more lively and a pillow fort gets erected in the living room, in front of the TV. Louis and AJ build the pillow fort together after the kid has showered, Clem having some work she needs to do for school. 

They watch the Lion King, and the Jungle Book and then Tangled, and then Louis puts on Beauty and the Beast when the pizza comes and by nine AJ is exhausted and fallen asleep inside the fort. 

So Louis carries him to the guest room they have that’s actually AJ’s room where Marlon or Violet sometimes stays over, and puts the kid to bed. 

Clem calls Lee to tell him they’re taking AJ to school tomorrow and Louis calls his boss to say he’s in half an hour later the next day. She’s very understanding about it -she knows about AJ- and tells him it’s fine. 

So Louis and Clem sit together on the couch for a while -he’s in the corner, feet on the coffee table, phone in his hand as he scrolls through twitter and the news while he chats with his friends. He switches to an app so he can make sudoku’s and enjoys the warmth of his girlfriend pressed against his side, feet propped up on the couch as she reads through one of her course books, a highlighter in between her teeth to mark the important bits. 

At eleven they go to bed and even in the dark his fingers find her scars, stroking the skin and whispering in her ear how much he loves her as she falls asleep next to him. 

He falls asleep after her, but not before he can think that today was perfect, and every day with her in his life will be, and it doesn’t matter what bad things will happen because with her at his side, happiness will always be seated in his heart. 

**Author's Note:**

> Uh so this ran away from me backstory wise -like how did they get at this point, so I've got notes on how they met at Ericsons when they were 15 and 16 and Clem joined the school for Reasons (i won't tell you in case I actually do manage to write that) and then there's like 3 years of pining and angst and misunderstandings until they talk like adults and fall in love
> 
> or something, not sure yet, but there's backstory and I might do something with that.
> 
> I'm pumped for the new episode coming out tuesday and i'm going to pretend like it isn't the last one because it'll probably end on a cliffhanger again and i would spoon my eyes out if that's the actual End Of Everything TWD


End file.
